Defendants’ behaviour ‘repugnant’, suit says

The Yukon and federal governments are being accused of letting a pedophile continue working at a Porter Creek home for children even after learning of his sexual and physical abuses.

The Yukon and federal governments are being accused of letting a pedophile continue working at a Porter Creek home for children even after learning of his sexual and physical abuses.

Neither government took steps to deal with the ongoing abuse by the supervisor at the Ridgeview Home for Children in the late 1960s.

As well, they have continued to deny any responsibility for the emotional destruction the victims have suffered, says a lawsuit filed recently in Yukon Supreme Court.

“The plaintiffs say that the conduct of the defendants was and remains disgraceful, repugnant, and reprehensible that they all acted and continue to act in an arrogant and high-handed fashion toward the plaintiffs and that they showed and continue to show a callous disregard for them and for the consequences of the damage caused to the plaintiffs by their fault,” reads the lawsuit filed by two Whitehorse residents who attended the home.

Though the suit names only two plaintiffs by their initials only, it does point out the plaintiffs have filed the legal action on behalf of all former residents of the home.

The home for status and non-status Indian children was funded by both the Yukon and federal governments.

Both governments knew or ought to have known that supervisor Gordon Arthur Donnelly was a pedophile with a history of abusing children, says the document.

It accuses both governments of doing nothing even after learning of the abuses being committed.

The two governments, says the lawsuit, continue to deny any responsibility in spite of Donnelly being convicted in 1989 of five criminal counts of abusing children in his care.

The suit says their continued denial only aggravates the trauma suffered by the victims, and hinders their ability to get proper counselling.

“The defendants have shown no remorse and have refused or failed to provide the plaintiffs with compensation or treatment,” says the lawsuit.

The governments, the lawsuit continues, unjustly forced the removal of the children from their parents, thereby denying them a normal upbringing and putting under the care of a supervisor who forced them to perform horrific sexual acts.

Donnelly also forced the children to watch or participate in humiliating physical abuse, the suit says.

By forcing the removal of the children, the governments created an emotionally destructive disconnect with the children’s family, their aboriginal language and their culture, says the lawsuit.

It says parents were not allowed to visit their children.

As a result of the abuse and the disconnect to family, the victims suffered and continue to suffer a huge of range of psychological and emotional problems, including the inability to trust others and develop relationships, the document says.

The lawsuit comes in the wake of the June 2008 public apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the shame and pain Canada’s aboriginal children suffered at Indian residential schools.

The federal government has also embarked on a program to provide financial compensation and access to treatment for survivors of residential school.